Paper beer bottles, 3D printed boats, hydrogen-powered rescues; the new Mirai, plastics from potato, Hallowe’en biobased coffins, The Digest’s Top 10 Innovations for the week of October 18th

#6 Stanford Researchers develop long lasting catalyst for commercial devices

In California, DOE and Stanford’s researchers have shown for the first time that a catalyst significantly cheaper than platinum can split water and generate hydrogen gas for several hours in a commercial device. The researchers replaced the platinum catalyst on the hydrogen-generating side with a cobalt phosphide alternative. Much of the previous work looking to develop alternatives to precious metal catalysts have been shown to work n only in laboratory settings, but this study is the first to demonstrate a high-performance alternative in a commercial electrolyzer. The study could ease the pressures caused by the highly volatile precious metal market, which currently is a major hurdle in the expansion of fuel-cell technology.

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